Attendance certificates and presence checks — a complete guide

Attendance certificates are one of the most-requested features in professional education webinars. Whether you're running CPD-accredited training, a compliance course, or a live cohort class, certificates turn attendance into a tangible credential — and give your attendees something to share.

How presence checks work

A presence check is a timed prompt that appears on the attendee's screen during a live session. Attendees must respond within a configurable window (typically 60–120 seconds) to register as "present" for that interval. Multiple checks across a session let you track partial attendance: an attendee who catches the last half of a two-hour session is recorded accurately, not as a binary attend/absent.

In Bhet Online, you configure presence checks in the session settings before you go live. Set the number of checks, the response window, and the minimum number of checks required to qualify for a certificate. A student who sleeps through half your class doesn't get the same certificate as one who was present throughout.

Configuring certificates

Certificate branding pulls from your workspace settings: your organisation name, logo, and accent colour are applied automatically. The certificate body includes the attendee's full name (captured at registration), the event title, the date, and a generated credential ID that can be verified against your account's public certificate page.

To issue certificates after a session: 1. Go to Events → select the session → Attendance 2. Filter by "Certificate eligible" (met your presence threshold) 3. Click Issue Certificates — attendees receive an email with a PDF and a shareable credential link

You can also issue certificates manually for specific attendees, which is useful for technical issues where an attendee was present but missed a presence check due to a connection drop.

Best practices

Set expectations upfront. Tell attendees in your pre-event email and at the start of the session that presence checks will occur and that they need to respond. Most attendees who fail to qualify do so through distraction, not absence — a single reminder at the start significantly improves completion rates.

Don't overload the session with checks. Three to four checks across a 90-minute session is sufficient for most accreditation purposes. More than that feels punitive and interrupts the flow of your content.

For asynchronous fallback, enable the replay with a completion threshold: attendees who miss the live session can watch the recording and qualify for a certificate by reaching the end. Not all accreditation bodies accept replay attendance, so check before enabling this option.

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